7 ms·

Part of the irony here is the FAA enforces strict deadlines upon those it regulates, but seems to ignore deadlines set for itself or by Congress. My medical ce

by dpifke 5y ago

Part of the irony here is the FAA enforces strict deadlines upon those it regulates, but seems to ignore deadlines set for itself or by Congress. My medical certificate is due for renewal in August. I have no ability to tell the FAA, "sorry, it's been delayed, I'll have an update for you in a few months." Edit to add: Lest this come off as generic complaining, here's an example of people dying because the FAA failed to do in a timely manner what Congress repeatedly told them to do: Ten years ago, Section 203 of the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 mandated that the FAA create an electronic pilot records database (PRD), which was intended to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the PRIA records retrieval process by providing hiring operators and DAs with direct access to pilots’ FAA, NDR, and former employer records in a single database. By 2016, the FAA had not yet implemented the PRD, and Congress imposed an April 30, 2017, deadline, which the FAA also missed. Although the FAA has begun phasing in the use of the PRD, the PRD is not yet fully functional; it contains only pilots’ FAA records and is available to hiring operators for use on a voluntary basis. On March 30, 2020, the FAA published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that outlined PRD functions. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR2002.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/... [PDF] (page 49)

mbustamanter 5y ago
I was an amaetur pilot for some time, enough time to conclude from experience and talking to colleagues in the realm of aviation that regulatory institutions across the world enforce the strict (and reasonably so) rules on pilots and smaller companies, while turning a blind eye to big airlines, manufacturers and succumbing to political incentives.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  I would be interested to know why you quit. I took some classes, but never got the license - it seems very high risk to fly once every few months in terms of skill degradation from disuse, and I never got any real excitement out of just going up to fly a rented Cessna when it's $150+ an hour, so I don't see myself just doing for that. Actually "flying cross-country" also seems impractical without skill upkeep. Seems like the stereotype "it's for rich bored people" is mainly true unless it's a primary hobby or people are going for airline pilot in the long run. P.S. Another random thought, but I feel like I would need to just spend 2 days straight landing and taking off to get comfortable with it. Like take-off, get some altitude, transition to slow flight, practice approach pattern, fully land, turn around, take off again. Seems like the classes spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really happen that much (stalls), stuff that isn't critical (ideal 180 turns within x time), etc.
  - mbustamanter 5y ago
    Yes, I and my father would 'fall' in the category of rich bored people (or being more precise, well-off STEM grads). It's risky, but it was beautiful. Unfortunately, at the time I took the classes I was also writing my thesis which meant sleeping very little (4 hours a day at best), and on top of my college studies I had to commute to the aerodrome 1 hour just to get there in the morning. I was so tired that I'd fall asleep at noon on the ride home. Then one day I crashed the plane on a fence after landing, it was a runway excursion due to my low reflexes and lack of sleep. The plane sustained minor damage and I got out unharmed, insurance covered most of the bill (a couple thousand) and I decided that I would get back to aviation after finishing my academic duties in a different setting, likely as an engineer/numerical analyst. I'm looking into buying smaller aircraft, likely an ultralight plane or a STOL [0]. I just like aviation too much, but I'm not willing to have another brush with death. In the meantime, two of my acquaintances died instantly after crashing on the slope of a volcano. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOL
  - nosianu 5y ago
    I quit flying because I found that I didn't want to go from A to B without having a car on the other end, that "just flying" was pretty boring, that aerobatics was real fun but also a huge commitment, and that I did not care that much after the initial success. I have about 175 hours, some 25 or so aerobatics (Attitude Aviation, Livermore, under the original owner), most of the time in and around the SF Bay Area. One hour in a glider (Byron) I started flying at WVFC (West Valley Flying Club) while working at a nearby software company. Mostly during work hours actually, I was pretty bored at work. I had already done some skydiving - during pre-military training in East Germany. I had had glasses when I grew up and in East Germany you did not fly casually, same with the skydiving, if you were young the goal always was the military career. On the other hand, the state paid for it all. Because of glasses I was under the impression I had no chance to ever be a pilot so I never even tried. Later I stopped needing glasses but never revisited the issue, despite some heavy longing (during youth I subscribed to a monthly East German flying magazine. When I worked in my boring software job the Piper and Cessna aircraft kept flying right over our lunch area on their landing approach to the airport just two or so miles away. So some day while having lunch, looking up, it finally clicked in my head - I now had actual money and all the East German restrictions where gone, why couldn't I... Anyway, I really enjoyed it, not just the flying itself but also the system and the discipline it required. Even things like approaches to airports without tower and radio and other procedures. I increasingly felt that it became too much effort for less and less gain. A whole Sunday afternoon if not more was gone even for less than an hour of aerobatics. Advantage of that type of flying, even if it requires something with a higher hourly rate than a Cessna or a Piper, is that an hour or less is all you need, so in the end you do significantly more "flying" than during cross-country, but you actually safe money and time. During cross-country, as far as the flying is concerned, you mostly just sit there. The processes and procedures can be fun. Still, as I said, I did not really gain anything from flying to some other place, another reason for aerobatics, where you end up at the same airport you started from. Two images from a relatively cheap but modern positive-G-only acro training aircraft, back then one of Attitude Aviations: https://i.imgur.com/Rd5VW3R.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Rd5VW3R.jpg (trying to take a picture while flying a loop - so I ended up with a terrible loop, but I got the picture) https://i.imgur.com/4bwJn13.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4bwJn13.jpg (view of cockpit of Grob 115C acro)
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > succumbing to political incentives Why are people surprised when government institutions succumb to political incentives? I once had a discussion with a PhD research scientists who said how great NSF funding was because they made funding decisions completely on scientific merit. I pointed out all the ways that it obviously allocated funds based on bias and politics.
  - mbustamanter 5y ago
    Yes, I agree with your point. But I was talking about nastier cases of corruption, for example, in certain latin american countries some low-cost airlines between central and south america got approved for operation, some without even satisfying basic requirements, but god forbid small businesses didn't. After some years, these same airlines filed for bankruptcy or got suspended. The kicker? It was discovered they were never profitable, and have since been suspected to be involved in dropping of foreign illegal workers, coming to their destinations as tourists. The most obvious giveaway apart from the latter is that if a carrier is low-cost, it most definitely should have at least a set of profitable domestic flights, and the ones I mentioned above didn't. One of the politicians suspected to be involved (this started under her presidency) is now sitting at the top of a United Nations office.
  - chaxor 5y ago
    "The government has a defect. It's _potentially_ democratic. Corporations have no defects. They're pure tyrannies." - Noam Chomsky
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Tell us about the last time a corporation ordered you to do anything?
      - nopzor 5y ago
        you make a good point and i agree with you, especially today. but, to answer your question in earnest: a long time ago - east india company? dole fruit?
CWuestefeld 5y ago
the FAA enforces strict deadlines upon those it regulates, but seems to ignore deadlines set for itself or by Congress. I think this just comes with the bureaucratic territory. My wife works in healthcare finance, especially with CMS on Medicare reimbursement. Having watched her doing this for a couple decades now, I can tell you that if you miss a CMS deadline by a day, they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. But the deadlines set for their own operations are purely aspirational. They seem to kinda maybe try to come near those dates, but they're almost universally slipped. Adding insult to injury, when CMS misses a date to publish new regulations or whatever, that doesn't necessarily mean that my wife gets a corresponding number of days to submit her responses: she's often got to absorb it on her side, working faster because the government works slower.
- Teever 5y ago
  I wish there was some sort of federal law that mandated reciprocal deadline leniency in this kind of situation. Imagine a scenario where a government department was held to the same standard that they hold others to. Imagine that.
  - vkou 5y ago
    This sounds like a good idea, could we extend it to the employee/employer relationship as well? Where your bosses gets held to the same standards they hold you? If you think that's legally or practically unworkable, well, there's your answer.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    Sadly, Washington is the largest special interest group in Washington.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Or, if a deadline is blown, the agency has to either approve the permit, or ask a judge for an extension based on actual need.
- bmitc 5y ago
  Agreed on bureaucracy. Bureaucracy and the imbalance of power is rampant in the U.S., and it concerns me. I don't know if people ever did, but it really feels like nobody gives a shit about their customers or citizens, as far as companies and the U.S. government, respectively, are concerned. Last year, through a fluke since I ended up being away from my apartment for several months, I found out my gas company had incorrectly installed the gas meters in my apartment. Thus, I had been paying the upstairs neighbors' gas bill (and vice versa) for over five years. It took 7-9 months to get the thousands of dollars they owed me. And that was after basically calling them every two weeks, going through no-shows of their technicians, and arguing with them that they needed to go back the entire time I had overpaid. They wanted to only go back two or three years because that's only how much data they kept. Which fuck that, because after arguing about it, they were somehow magically able to go back the full duration of my account with them, "finding" the data. We literally hunted for a house and bought one in the in-between time of discovering the issue and getting my money. Can you imagine being able to tell some company you owe money to "I'll get it to you when I get to it, I'm really busy right now" or that "well, my records only go back so far, so I can't do anything about money I owe you before a certain time"? You'd be submitted to a credit agency and completely wrecked. In this and more of these scenarios, it is absolutely the most remote possibility that you can act like this towards companies and the government when they want something from you. It really bothers me to my core that we have no power against companies or government. This is what it's like to live in an oligarchy.
chrisshroba 5y ago
> here's an example of people dying You didn't really quote anything that mentions death or injury, could you expand on that?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- djrogers 5y ago
  They linked to a PDF of an accident report for a 767 with 3 deaths, and included a page # to follow for the reference to the issue being relevant - follow it and you will find what you're looking for.
Blackthorn 5y ago
Dealing with the FAA over medical certification for mere third-class is enough to turn anyone into a government-hating conservative.
- tetsusaiga 5y ago
  you better not be sad!
- zzless 5y ago
  True. This is why I advise all of my students who want to be casual fliers only (i.e. not flying for hire) to switch to Basic Med. No need to seek out an AME (any family doctor can do it) and the appointment is only every four years (instead of every two if you are over 45). Even flight instructors can instruct with Basic Med.
  - Blackthorn 5y ago
    I wish. You have to get a third class at least once before you can use Basic Med though.
    - nopzor 5y ago
      true, basicmed was a relative disappointment based on what people were originally hoping for. have you considered sport pilot or lsa?
      - Blackthorn 5y ago
        You can't do either if you've already applied for third class medical.
        nopzor 5y ago
        so a pending (not a denied) class 3 means you can’t fly under lsa? ugh, that sucks. what about glider or motor glider? same deal? (i am a private pilot who let his valid class 3 expire, flying under basicmed, getting more into lsa and motorgliders)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ctennis1 5y ago
I have a good friend now who went in for his third class medical in October 2021, the doctor flagged a prescription he had previously been taking (but was no longer taking), and wanted clarification from the FAA. Now in April, it's still in the "review queue". Meanwhile he's grounded, with no end in sight as to when the answer will be returned. Not only that, but once it's cleared, the medical date will be retroactive to October, so the renewal clock is ticking the whole time he can't be flying.
- landemva 5y ago
  The COVID emergency use vaccines should prevent passing a flight physical. This is being widely ignored, apparently. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/pharm/dni_dnf/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av... 'The FAA generally requires at least one-year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes.'
  - munk-a 5y ago
    That seems like a great example of the FFA getting out of the way of the necessary. Pandemic times are when rules need to be more flexible since we're responding to non-standard conditions. If that rule wasn't waved pilots would need to chose between being more vulnerable to the pandemic vs. getting to draw an income for a year - that seems a lot worse than some rules being temporarily ignored.
    - landemva 5y ago
      Cardiac problems with the vaccines are being discovered and cause sudden issues. I would prefer following written rules or changing the rules, instead of ignoring rules.
    - 8note 5y ago
      That's protecting the one pilot in exchange for whatever is on the plane in terms of risk.
importantbrian 5y ago
This is an issue with almost every federal agency. Every federal agency has been required to pass an audit since the 90s and the Department of Defense has yet to be able to do it despite being warned multiple times by congress. The issue is there are no consequences for them failing to do it.
z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
"Rules for thee, not for me". What did you think the motto of the elite and the institutions has been forever?

by dpifke 5y ago

mbustamanter 5y ago

I was an amaetur pilot for some time, enough time to conclude from experience and talking to colleagues in the realm of aviation that regulatory institutions across the world enforce the strict (and reasonably so) rules on pilots and smaller companies, while turning a blind eye to big airlines, manufacturers and succumbing to political incentives.

throw1234651234 5y ago
I would be interested to know why you quit. I took some classes, but never got the license - it seems very high risk to fly once every few months in terms of skill degradation from disuse, and I never got any real excitement out of just going up to fly a rented Cessna when it's $150+ an hour, so I don't see myself just doing for that. Actually "flying cross-country" also seems impractical without skill upkeep. Seems like the stereotype "it's for rich bored people" is mainly true unless it's a primary hobby or people are going for airline pilot in the long run. P.S. Another random thought, but I feel like I would need to just spend 2 days straight landing and taking off to get comfortable with it. Like take-off, get some altitude, transition to slow flight, practice approach pattern, fully land, turn around, take off again. Seems like the classes spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't really happen that much (stalls), stuff that isn't critical (ideal 180 turns within x time), etc.
- mbustamanter 5y ago
  Yes, I and my father would 'fall' in the category of rich bored people (or being more precise, well-off STEM grads). It's risky, but it was beautiful. Unfortunately, at the time I took the classes I was also writing my thesis which meant sleeping very little (4 hours a day at best), and on top of my college studies I had to commute to the aerodrome 1 hour just to get there in the morning. I was so tired that I'd fall asleep at noon on the ride home. Then one day I crashed the plane on a fence after landing, it was a runway excursion due to my low reflexes and lack of sleep. The plane sustained minor damage and I got out unharmed, insurance covered most of the bill (a couple thousand) and I decided that I would get back to aviation after finishing my academic duties in a different setting, likely as an engineer/numerical analyst. I'm looking into buying smaller aircraft, likely an ultralight plane or a STOL [0]. I just like aviation too much, but I'm not willing to have another brush with death. In the meantime, two of my acquaintances died instantly after crashing on the slope of a volcano. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOL
- nosianu 5y ago
  I quit flying because I found that I didn't want to go from A to B without having a car on the other end, that "just flying" was pretty boring, that aerobatics was real fun but also a huge commitment, and that I did not care that much after the initial success. I have about 175 hours, some 25 or so aerobatics (Attitude Aviation, Livermore, under the original owner), most of the time in and around the SF Bay Area. One hour in a glider (Byron) I started flying at WVFC (West Valley Flying Club) while working at a nearby software company. Mostly during work hours actually, I was pretty bored at work. I had already done some skydiving - during pre-military training in East Germany. I had had glasses when I grew up and in East Germany you did not fly casually, same with the skydiving, if you were young the goal always was the military career. On the other hand, the state paid for it all. Because of glasses I was under the impression I had no chance to ever be a pilot so I never even tried. Later I stopped needing glasses but never revisited the issue, despite some heavy longing (during youth I subscribed to a monthly East German flying magazine. When I worked in my boring software job the Piper and Cessna aircraft kept flying right over our lunch area on their landing approach to the airport just two or so miles away. So some day while having lunch, looking up, it finally clicked in my head - I now had actual money and all the East German restrictions where gone, why couldn't I... Anyway, I really enjoyed it, not just the flying itself but also the system and the discipline it required. Even things like approaches to airports without tower and radio and other procedures. I increasingly felt that it became too much effort for less and less gain. A whole Sunday afternoon if not more was gone even for less than an hour of aerobatics. Advantage of that type of flying, even if it requires something with a higher hourly rate than a Cessna or a Piper, is that an hour or less is all you need, so in the end you do significantly more "flying" than during cross-country, but you actually safe money and time. During cross-country, as far as the flying is concerned, you mostly just sit there. The processes and procedures can be fun. Still, as I said, I did not really gain anything from flying to some other place, another reason for aerobatics, where you end up at the same airport you started from. Two images from a relatively cheap but modern positive-G-only acro training aircraft, back then one of Attitude Aviations: https://i.imgur.com/Rd5VW3R.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Rd5VW3R.jpg (trying to take a picture while flying a loop - so I ended up with a terrible loop, but I got the picture) https://i.imgur.com/4bwJn13.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4bwJn13.jpg (view of cockpit of Grob 115C acro)
WalterBright 5y ago
> succumbing to political incentives Why are people surprised when government institutions succumb to political incentives? I once had a discussion with a PhD research scientists who said how great NSF funding was because they made funding decisions completely on scientific merit. I pointed out all the ways that it obviously allocated funds based on bias and politics.
- mbustamanter 5y ago
  Yes, I agree with your point. But I was talking about nastier cases of corruption, for example, in certain latin american countries some low-cost airlines between central and south america got approved for operation, some without even satisfying basic requirements, but god forbid small businesses didn't. After some years, these same airlines filed for bankruptcy or got suspended. The kicker? It was discovered they were never profitable, and have since been suspected to be involved in dropping of foreign illegal workers, coming to their destinations as tourists. The most obvious giveaway apart from the latter is that if a carrier is low-cost, it most definitely should have at least a set of profitable domestic flights, and the ones I mentioned above didn't. One of the politicians suspected to be involved (this started under her presidency) is now sitting at the top of a United Nations office.
- chaxor 5y ago
  "The government has a defect. It's _potentially_ democratic. Corporations have no defects. They're pure tyrannies." - Noam Chomsky
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Tell us about the last time a corporation ordered you to do anything?
    - nopzor 5y ago
      you make a good point and i agree with you, especially today. but, to answer your question in earnest: a long time ago - east india company? dole fruit?

CWuestefeld 5y ago

the FAA enforces strict deadlines upon those it regulates, but seems to ignore deadlines set for itself or by Congress. I think this just comes with the bureaucratic territory. My wife works in healthcare finance, especially with CMS on Medicare reimbursement. Having watched her doing this for a couple decades now, I can tell you that if you miss a CMS deadline by a day, they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. But the deadlines set for their own operations are purely aspirational. They seem to kinda maybe try to come near those dates, but they're almost universally slipped. Adding insult to injury, when CMS misses a date to publish new regulations or whatever, that doesn't necessarily mean that my wife gets a corresponding number of days to submit her responses: she's often got to absorb it on her side, working faster because the government works slower.

Teever 5y ago
I wish there was some sort of federal law that mandated reciprocal deadline leniency in this kind of situation. Imagine a scenario where a government department was held to the same standard that they hold others to. Imagine that.
- vkou 5y ago
  This sounds like a good idea, could we extend it to the employee/employer relationship as well? Where your bosses gets held to the same standards they hold you? If you think that's legally or practically unworkable, well, there's your answer.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  Sadly, Washington is the largest special interest group in Washington.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Or, if a deadline is blown, the agency has to either approve the permit, or ask a judge for an extension based on actual need.
bmitc 5y ago
Agreed on bureaucracy. Bureaucracy and the imbalance of power is rampant in the U.S., and it concerns me. I don't know if people ever did, but it really feels like nobody gives a shit about their customers or citizens, as far as companies and the U.S. government, respectively, are concerned. Last year, through a fluke since I ended up being away from my apartment for several months, I found out my gas company had incorrectly installed the gas meters in my apartment. Thus, I had been paying the upstairs neighbors' gas bill (and vice versa) for over five years. It took 7-9 months to get the thousands of dollars they owed me. And that was after basically calling them every two weeks, going through no-shows of their technicians, and arguing with them that they needed to go back the entire time I had overpaid. They wanted to only go back two or three years because that's only how much data they kept. Which fuck that, because after arguing about it, they were somehow magically able to go back the full duration of my account with them, "finding" the data. We literally hunted for a house and bought one in the in-between time of discovering the issue and getting my money. Can you imagine being able to tell some company you owe money to "I'll get it to you when I get to it, I'm really busy right now" or that "well, my records only go back so far, so I can't do anything about money I owe you before a certain time"? You'd be submitted to a credit agency and completely wrecked. In this and more of these scenarios, it is absolutely the most remote possibility that you can act like this towards companies and the government when they want something from you. It really bothers me to my core that we have no power against companies or government. This is what it's like to live in an oligarchy.

chrisshroba 5y ago

> here's an example of people dying You didn't really quote anything that mentions death or injury, could you expand on that?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
djrogers 5y ago
They linked to a PDF of an accident report for a 767 with 3 deaths, and included a page # to follow for the reference to the issue being relevant - follow it and you will find what you're looking for.

Blackthorn 5y ago

Dealing with the FAA over medical certification for mere third-class is enough to turn anyone into a government-hating conservative.

tetsusaiga 5y ago
you better not be sad!
zzless 5y ago
True. This is why I advise all of my students who want to be casual fliers only (i.e. not flying for hire) to switch to Basic Med. No need to seek out an AME (any family doctor can do it) and the appointment is only every four years (instead of every two if you are over 45). Even flight instructors can instruct with Basic Med.
- Blackthorn 5y ago
  I wish. You have to get a third class at least once before you can use Basic Med though.
  - nopzor 5y ago
    true, basicmed was a relative disappointment based on what people were originally hoping for. have you considered sport pilot or lsa?
    - Blackthorn 5y ago
      You can't do either if you've already applied for third class medical.
      - nopzor 5y ago
        so a pending (not a denied) class 3 means you can’t fly under lsa? ugh, that sucks. what about glider or motor glider? same deal? (i am a private pilot who let his valid class 3 expire, flying under basicmed, getting more into lsa and motorgliders)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ctennis1 5y ago

I have a good friend now who went in for his third class medical in October 2021, the doctor flagged a prescription he had previously been taking (but was no longer taking), and wanted clarification from the FAA. Now in April, it's still in the "review queue". Meanwhile he's grounded, with no end in sight as to when the answer will be returned. Not only that, but once it's cleared, the medical date will be retroactive to October, so the renewal clock is ticking the whole time he can't be flying.

landemva 5y ago
The COVID emergency use vaccines should prevent passing a flight physical. This is being widely ignored, apparently. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/pharm/dni_dnf/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av... 'The FAA generally requires at least one-year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes.'
- munk-a 5y ago
  That seems like a great example of the FFA getting out of the way of the necessary. Pandemic times are when rules need to be more flexible since we're responding to non-standard conditions. If that rule wasn't waved pilots would need to chose between being more vulnerable to the pandemic vs. getting to draw an income for a year - that seems a lot worse than some rules being temporarily ignored.
  - landemva 5y ago
    Cardiac problems with the vaccines are being discovered and cause sudden issues. I would prefer following written rules or changing the rules, instead of ignoring rules.
  - 8note 5y ago
    That's protecting the one pilot in exchange for whatever is on the plane in terms of risk.

importantbrian 5y ago

This is an issue with almost every federal agency. Every federal agency has been required to pass an audit since the 90s and the Department of Defense has yet to be able to do it despite being warned multiple times by congress. The issue is there are no consequences for them failing to do it.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago

"Rules for thee, not for me". What did you think the motto of the elite and the institutions has been forever?